


The Things Unsaid Are Screaming

by SaltyWords (agent4hire22)



Series: Hell is Empty [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: 11x15 coda, Angst, Canon Compliant, Coda, Depressed Dean, Dying Castiel, Heavy Angst, Kissing, M/M, Season/Series 11 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-07
Updated: 2016-03-07
Packaged: 2018-05-25 06:25:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6184180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agent4hire22/pseuds/SaltyWords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>11x15 coda: As Dean struggles to find a way to save Cas, thoughts of him are running rampant through Dean's mind, trying to nudge him in the right direction. Is it just a dream?</p><p>“You know what you mean to me?” Dean breathed into the quiet. It was a question lost in time, completely pickled in urgency and bleeding out at his feet. Any moment someone was going to call a code, and he wasn’t going to waste it.<br/>“I want to know,” Cas said, voice sweet. Lucidity ran streaks through his eyes. “I need you to tell me.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Things Unsaid Are Screaming

**Author's Note:**

> **EDITED for typos, content, and general shittiness 3/7/16 :)

Dean had Cas worked into a corner. He kissed him fast and sloppy, begging _yes’s_ into his mouth. His hands tamed fire at the front of his trench coat, as he struggled it open, slipped inside. Cas pulled at him, fingers full of soft cotton plaid, and stomach so far up his throat he was gasping.

It wasn’t the first time Dean had had a dream like this.

“You know what you mean to me?” he breathed into the quiet. It was a question lost in time, completely pickled in urgency and bleeding out at his feet. Any moment someone was going to call a code, and he wasn’t going to waste it.

“I want to know,” Cas said, voice sweet. Lucidity ran streaks through his eyes. “I need you to tell me.”

Dean worked a mark into his lip, catching the swell of it and tasting his heat. Cataloging the feel of his weight, the roll of his body. The way his hands moved arcs down Dean’s sides and settled silky at the edge of his shirt, fingering the trail of hair down his belly. It was everything.

“I’m tellin’ you,” he huffed, moving with the brush of Cas’ touch, hasty like a ball of nerves. He wanted this so bad, needed it. “I’m tellin’ you right now.”

Cas’ breath suddenly hitched stale, and his face drew thin. His eyes pulled the shadows, and swallowed the room. “ _Our Father, who art in heaven. Hallowed be thy name…”_ He ran fingers down Dean’s face working a chill through his skin. It felt like absolution. “ _Thy kingdom come, thy will be done–_ ”

“Cas, please. I’m tellin’ you,” Dean begged again before everything fell apart and he woke up in an empty bed. No missed calls on his phone, and only a phantom memory of this warmth.

Only, the prayer was new…

Cas palmed smooth hands down Dean’s face, gaze sinking to his mouth then filtering back up. Something in it so corrupt, it was seeping. “I’m slipping,” he whispered.

“You ain’t slipping. You’re right here,” Dean assured, pulling at him. He searched for Cas’ lips again, but they weren’t on offer anymore.

“I’m a broken tool. There’s nothing left for me but to be thrown away.”

“No,” Dean shook his head nosed a line into the curve of his jaw. “You’re not a tool.”

“I’m your tool.” Cas breathed deep, the air curling in his throat and running rough through his vocal chords. His chin tipped and the shadows in those dark blue eyes thinned. “That’s when you always leave. When I’m broken.”

“I ain’t leavin’. No one’s leavin’.”

“But, you always do, Dean.” Cas kissed it into his cheek, his fingers combing lines in the hair behind Dean’s ears. “When I became human… When I lost my wings… When my heart started blinding me… You taught me I was disposable. You planted a seed of humanity in me and watched it rot me out. What else do you do with a broken tool but throw it away? I’m useless. Worthless.”

Tears welled in Dean’s eyes, biting hot. “I didn’t–you’re not!” he stumbled. The shadows shimmered as the edges of the dream and started melting, but he couldn’t seem to work his fingers loose. “You’re anything but…” he cried, because even in this moment, convincing Cas of his worth seemed like the most important thing in the world, and just like the outside, Dean felt like he wasn’t equipped to deal.

 _Don’t take this away from me,_ he begged the darkness. _Please don’t go._

Cas closed his eyes. “ _Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for you are with me–”_

“I don’t understand!” Dean yelled shaking him. _The prayers are new._ It wasn’t the first time he’d had this dream–Cas and him pressed into a warm corner–but the prayers– “What are you doing?” he gasped.

Everything was tilted.

“I loved you,” Cas said, fingers plucking punctuation into the goosebumps on Dean’s arm. Dean’s stomach tangled up in his throat, everything weighing sideways with the tip of Cas’ head.

He caught along that whetstoned word, and suddenly nothing else mattered.

Cas said _loved… not love._ For all the times Dean had imagined this moment, it’d never been like this. Never this ominous and determinate. Sitting shriveled alongside the silence and those slick, hurried kisses.

This was already over.

“You don’t still?” he choked.

“I can’t. I already filled the hole.”

“With the devil?”

“Some things are worth sacrificing yourself for–”

“–Don’t!” Dean yelled. “Don’t you quote me to me.”

Cas leaned in and kissed him again, the cold in it drove shivers to the pit of his stomach and buried them there. “It’s too late,” he said.

Dean’s fingers caught the hurt and took claim in his white button up. “It ain’t too late! Nothing’s too late!”

“I’m not me anymore, I’m gone.”

“Nobody’s gone.” Dean held him firm. “Ain’t through lack of trying, but nobody’s gone–not yet.”

Cas shook his head, thumbs trailing lines down Dean’s face again. Over his cheekbones, down his neck. “ _Father, Blot out the sin I have committed through human weakness–”_

Suddenly everything made sense. He caught Cas’ hands, pulled them away. “Are you doing last rites?” he asked stealing into the silence.

Cas swallowed as his face fell.

“You’re not dying!” Dean demanded. If he yelled it loud enough, it would turn back the clocks and every shitty thing they’d done would unwind. He grabbed Cas’ face and searched him. He’d give anything for the feel of his lips. The sandy pull of his unshaven face moving intimate scrapes along his chin. But the only thing he felt now was the hot wave of tears running down his cheeks and the emptiness those lifeless blue eyes bore into him.

Cas licked his lips again. “ _Father in this world I have died, through him let me live forever,”_ he whispered.

“You’re not gonna die,” Dean said again, but the conviction was lost between the cold of Cas’ fingers, and the dance of shadows that reminded him it was all in his head. “I’m gonna get you back. I swear it. Help me.”

Cas’ face cracked. A slow, sweet smile spreading crooked through his lips. It touched his eyes and for a moment, there was light there again. “Tell me,” he said, sweeping hands down Dean’s chest, resting the both of them in a pile over Dean’s heart, those eyes always searching. “I need you to tell me.”

  
  


Dean bolted up from the table, jaw stiff where he’d had it pressed into the wood. The dream strained out like a bad smell, the stiff notes of it lingering in all the corners. The bunker was warm and quiet. That calming hum of the water pipes pitching into the silence one more time as a toilet flushed.

Sam was awake.

Dean wiped his eyes, was sure he was a mess of tears, but his face was dry.

_Just a dream._

The hurt sat at the edges of his fingertips regardless, and threatened a real round of salty sobbing, so he took a breath. Balled a fist into his stomach and eyed the bottle of Ibuprofen. His head was throbbing and he couldn’t keep doing this: passing out on the pages, dreaming about Cas, all of it. He was threadbare.

“Hey,” Sam said rounding the corner, tugging the bottom of his shirt down. “Have you seen the, uh–” Dean tossed him the bottle, listened to the pills inside jostle as his brother caught it dead-palm. “Thanks.”

“Bottoms up.” He watched Sam pop a couple pills, thought about taking it back, just to take the edge off. He caught a bottle of whiskey out the corner of his eye, then brushed it off just as quickly. Whiskey was for forgetting, and he didn’t have that luxury anymore. He wasn’t going to forget Cas. This was not going to be how it all ended. Not after everything they’d been through.

“Hey, what’s in the bag?” Sam asked pulling his attention.

Dean followed his eye line. It was the bag he’d thrown together the night before, after he’d caught a sad bit of news on the line they were always casting. “Oh, you remember Top-Notch wrestling?” he asked wiping a hand down his face, shifting his numb ass in the chair.

“Those, uh, wrestling shows dad took us to when we were kids.”

“Right,” Dean nodded, cleared his throat. “Came across an obituary last night…” He spun the laptop. “Larry-the Hangman-Lee died.”

“Oh no.”

“He was dad’s favorite. When that noose came out, dad would always be up on his feet. One of the few times I ever saw him actually happy. Anyway,” he said taking a quick drink from his long cold coffee. “Funeral’s less than a day’s drive. I say we go pay our respects.”

Sam side-eyed him. “Don’t you think our plates are a little full?”

 _Yeah, always,_ Dean agreed nodding. The thought of Cas sat heavy in the pit of his stomach, and he wasn’t sure it was a feeling he’d ever be able to shake out, no matter the outcome. This time it didn’t feel like when Sam was taken over. It was something else entirely. It didn’t feel like he’d failed, it felt like he’d lost something. O _r was about to lose something._ “We’ve got jack on saving Cas,” he mumbled.

“If he even wants to be saved.”

“He does,” Dean said bristling. The dream came back to him like a slap in the face.

“ _Just tell me, Dean. I need you to tell me…”_

He choked another hard swallow and settled eyes heavy on his brother. “Even if he doesn’t know it yet.”


End file.
